Hey, What’s So Funny?

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

My friend was sad last night. Maybe she was angry. It could have been the wine. It’s hard to tell sometimes on an email. (UNLESS YOU’RE WRITING LIKE THIS, of course, which is awfully loud and means you’re either angry or just confused about that whole “caps lock” nonsense.)

Anyway, my friend has to write me by email, because my old Droid can’t pick up the iPhone emojis she regularly texts to me.

She’ll send me texts that are simply a line of empty squares where the emojis are supposed to be. Like this …

I have no idea what she’s talking about. She does it all the time. When I told her that I couldn’t see her emojis, the blank squares started coming in even faster.

But, last night her email was mad-sad. Because the world is ugly and the uglier the world gets the angrier, it seems, the smaller world around us gets. The hatefulness just starts to open its net wider and wider, and all of a sudden everybody just hates everybody else.

“Talk to me so I can hear the accent, but minus the hate,” she wrote.

What do you say to someone who is mad-sad about the state of things? Just like you?

I’ve been reading Elvis Costello’s memoir “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink”, which, of course, has led me to listen to all my old Elvis Costello albums.

There’s a point coming, but, first, let me just say this about Kindle books.

I heard someone on the radio this week recommend Costello’s memoir, but warned, “It’s 671 pages.”

Wait, what?

I’ve been reading it on my Kindle for weeks now, and I had no idea that it was a long book. I mean, sure it seemed to be taking awhile, and just when I think it’s winding down, he wanders down another tangent. You know, like your friend who sits with you at the bar after midnight and says, “Come on just one more beer, ok?”

Kindle books should carry a warning, “Hey, Book Worm, before you tap open page one, you oughta know, this is a 700-page book. It’ll be awhile.”

Bob Dylan’s memoir-ish Chronicles was barely 300 pages. How was I to know that Elvis Costello wrote the War & Peace of rock books?

Still, very good book. But, I may not be done until Opening Day.

Home Stretch.

Anyway, so I’m listening to all sorts of Elvis Costello, but I keep coming back to that one mad-sad song that seems to fit the times – no matter the time or year or decade. It just always seems to fit.

(What’s so funny ’bout) peace, love & understanding?

Which was a mad song when the “Angry Young Elvis” sang it in 1979.

But, it’s a bewildered, dreamy, and sad song when Nick Lowe sings it. (He wrote it, by the way.)

(And, don’t feel bad if you always thought Elvis Costello wrote the song, because, as Elvis points out in his book, John Lennon thought so, too.)

Here’s Nick singing it in 1974, the year he wrote it, with the band Brinsley Schwarz. Elvis calls the original version “almost tongue-in-cheek.”

But, it’s never felt tongue-in-cheek to me.

Here’s Keb Mo, and his bluesy, folky, Americana take.

A few years ago, Stephen Colbert did it on his Christmas show, with Elvis, Willie Nelson, John Legend, Feist, and (for realz) Toby Keith.

For you Australian fans in your 40s, here’s Midnight Oil.

And, look … here’s Taylor Momsen and the Pretty Reckless! (Yes, where is the harmony?)

Here’s Natalie Merchant, once with 10,000 Maniacs and now just a maniac on her own (and not spinning around as much).

(Can you hear the riff from George Harrison’s version of If Not For You tucked into this version?)

Hey, Grunge fans … it’s Chris Cornell, with Spanish subtitles.

Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi’s the awkward guy who’s just a tiny bit off key … clearly, there is no sweet harmony).

The gospel-y Holmes Brothers.

And, the one that made me cry. Israeli Peace Activist David Broza, recording at a Palestinian studio in 2013 with the Jerusalem Youth Choir, the only choir that includes both Israeli and Palestinian teens …

Yay, the sweet harmony is back!

I’ve left out plenty. Covers by Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers, Steve Earle, The Flaming Lips, Simple Minds, and more. The Googler can find their versions for you if you ask.

So, what’s the point of all this?

Well, a few things …

Hey, it’s just a great song.
The Internet, with all its videos and stuff tucked into nooks and crannies, can be an amazing treasure chest to paw through on a Sunday morning.
When you’re mad-sad about the state of things, music won’t necessarily fix anything, but it’s nice, sometimes, to know you’re not alone.

It’s been three weeks since baseball.

Something Like A Star

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid. ~ Robert Frost

Baseball is a team sport oddly suited for solitude and introverts. To watch, immersed, the pitcher and the batter, standing alone in their places, like those people crowded on the morning subway, absorbed in their alone-ness while standing hip close in a can filled with people.

Like those people who sit alone at the end of the bar staring into ice.

Like those people in church who come early and kneel and hold their rosary more tightly than it needs and you think, “Boy, there must be some stories in those sins.”

The pitcher and the batter, interrupted only by the occasional sign from the catcher or the intrusion of the umpire.

The lonely outfielders, way out in their grass, staring into the game, just like I do off in the bleachers.

Because to immerse yourself in the game as a fan, day after night after day, is an introversion, too.

Manny Machado. May 31, 2015. Camden Yards, Baltimore. © The Baseball Bloggess

So, when you step out of baseball, when there are no more games, when the players disappear into the fog of that last out to go where sleepy players go when they’re not there on the grass, when you only have the memory of those one or two great plays from the thousands that you have seen, you’re a little like a bear, I think, crawling out of winter torpor or waking up after a night’s storm.

You step out into the sunlight, squint, and look around and see what the world has been doing while you’ve been baseballing.

And, you think, “Shit.”

Because the world seems mean and angry and evil. And, nothing and everything has changed from when you left, when you slipped inside that first game of the spring.

Some of my friends wonder how I can love baseball.

How can I not?

When I saw my first game, I was older, in my 20s. And, our seats were up high in Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium. And, we wound our way up through those concrete halls and stepped out into the night, where the lights were bright though the sky was not yet dark, and the grass on that wide field was greener than any other grass in the world, and the diamond so carefully cut in straight and even lines, and there were people playing and tossing a ball, and I have only one memory of that first game, looking at all of that before me and thinking, “I’m home.”

How can I not love baseball?

Because this world seems a scary, ugly place. And, is it wrong to want to look away sometimes?

Not to feed the dark impulse to close one’s eyes completely. But, just to seek a second of solitude. So as not to be guided by fear or the misdirection or broad brush of anger.

The game is a rest station. Something like a star.

It has been two weeks without baseball.

Allen Toussaint (1938-2015)

Happy Place: There’s No Place Like It

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

When The Daily Post asked bloggers to show their “Happy Place” on their blogs this week I wasn’t going to play along. After all, what do you expect me to say?

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;

A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,

Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere.

Home! Home! Sweet, sweet home!

There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!

~ From the 1823 opera “Clari, or the Maid of Milan.”

Funny thing. 1823 is also the year that we can find the first known references to the game of “base ball”:

“I was last Saturday much pleased in witnessing a company of active young men playing the manly and athletic game of ‘base ball’ at the Retreat in Broadway.” ~ The National Advocate, April 23, 1823.

Coincidence? Of course not.

There’s no place like home.

Photo: The University of Virginia vs. the Ontario Blue Jays. Davenport Field, Charlottesville, Virginia. October 13, 2015. (Taken behind the netting. Sorry about that.) © The Baseball Bloggess

UVa defeated the Canadian squad (an 18-and-under team featuring some of the best young players in the country) 12-5 last night in a strange 14-inning “exhibition” game that was a more a showcase for scouts, I think, than an actual game. Players batting out of order. Pinch runners pinch running and then disappearing. Really odd.

But, still … even really odd baseball is Happy Place worthy.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Happy Place.”

Baseball & The Wildlife Center of Virginia. The Cubs, Cards, Blue Jays … & You.

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

When the season’s over and your team’s gone fishin’ … or gone off in search of multimillion-dollar paydays with other teams (No, Chris, No! Wait, don’t go!) … it’s time to see what’s been going on in the non-baseball world.

Good grief, the Wildlife Center of Virginia Gala is Saturday, October 17!

I’m only telling you this because the Wildlife Center is awesome and cares for thousands of wild animals each year and because there are some baseball-related auction items that you really need.

And, since you can bid online and have things shipped to you, it would be just plain greedy of me to keep all these nice things for myself.

Every single item was donated directly to the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Every single penny of your winning bid will go toward saving the lives of ill and injured wildlife, including Black Bear cubs (go Cubs!), Northern Cardinals (go Cards!), and Blue Jays (go … uh, errrr … uh, go Blue Jays, whoo.<- – – half-hearted whoo.)

(No worries, O’s fans. They care for Baltimore Orioles, too.)

The Wildlife Center of Virginia relies entirely on the generosity of people like us.

They have lots of cool things to bid on this year; you can see some of them here.

Here are a few:

CHRIS DAVIS BASEBALLS. Current (and hopefully future) Baltimore Oriole Chris “Crush” Davis hit more home runs than ANYBODY in 2015 (and in 2013).

Here’s a “Crush” homer against the Oakland A’s in August.

Because Davis is a big guy, you don’t get one signed ball, you get two.

(IDEA: Keep one for your collection and give one to me!)

These balls were signed during an Orioles series in Texas this season and donated to the Center by a member of the Davis family.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA COLLEGE WORLD SERIES 2015 PRINT. They’ve been playing baseball at the University of Virginia for 126 years, but only once – ONCE! – have they won the College World Series. And, it was this year. Local artist Jeff Curry documents many UVa sports and events and this print celebrates the Hoos’ unlikely, amazing, and historic victory in the CWS, defeating Vanderbilt for the crown.

This limited edition print has been framed and is signed and numbered by the artist.

Another lovely auction piece: this rare, limited-edition P. Buckley Moss lithograph of the University of Virginia:

FOUR RICHMOND FLYING SQUIRRELS TICKETS. First of all, they’re the Flying Squirrels – and any team named the Flying Squirrels is awesome. Second, they’re the Double A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and some of the best players in the majors today have been Squirrels, including Matt Duffy (my Rookie of the Year pick), and All-Stars Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford.

Choose any game during the 2016 season (except Opening Day or July 4). Why, yes, I am available that day and I would love to go with you, thanks for asking! :)

AEROSMITH SIGNED CONCERT-USED DRUMHEAD. Aerosmith is from Boston. So are the Red Sox. (OK, that’s all I got.) But, this drumhead, used during Aerosmith’s 2015 “Blue Army” tour, has been signed by the entire band and comes with a pair of Joey Kramer’s own drumsticks, so it is both a rare piece of rock history and a quite usable noisemaker.

The production manager on Aerosmith’s summer tour is a friend of the Wildlife Center (and, I kid you not, he predicted right here on this blog last spring that the Rangers would go to the post-season. I laughed at him then. Sorry, Chris. You were right.) Chris had this drumhead signed exclusively for this event. Hang this in your house and your world will change for the better, I’m quite sure of it.

90-MINUTE HOT STONE MASSAGE. Yes, I’m going to brag. My hot stones are like a steamy, sweet hot chocolate at a cold, October baseball game. They’ll warm you up inside and out and your team will always win. My hot stones rock. (<- – -massage humor.) I promise you, the massage is pretty sweet, too. No shipping on this item, but if you’re near Madison, Virginia … you really oughta bid.

I’ve also put together a “YOGA IN A BASKET” filled with DVDs, music, and other Yoga-riffic treats. (More info on all I’ve tucked in it is here.)

If you have questions or are ready to bid, email auctionbid@wildlifecenter.org.

The deadline for absentee bids is Friday, October 16, 2015 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

Bidding info can be found here.

Bid generously. Make a difference. Save a wild animal’s life.

Thank you!

Boundaries: Game 162

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Every fan knows that baseball mimics the seasons.

The year starts with the freshness of spring when anything — everything — is possible.

On to summer, when the sun runs high and hot, the nights turn steamy, and the hottest teams go on sweaty win streaks and the homers fly out like crazy because, as every fan knows, baseballs love the heat and humidity.

Now it is fall. Game 162. Things have grown chilly and the teams drop away, one by one, like the leaves on a tree. Until no one is left.

The season gets rolled up and tucked away. Just a bunch of games that all run together when you try to remember where you were when …

And, then you count the days until you get to do it all over again.

Those are the boundaries of a baseball fan.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Boundaries.”

Photos: Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. 2015 © The Baseball Bloggess

Three Mookies

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

There are lots of good baseball names.

Where else can you find a Yogi and Chipper and Moose and Boog?

(Spaceman and Satchel. And, Catfish and Goose. Campy and Crush. Oil Can and Babe.)

And, Mookie.

Mookie is beyond a good baseball name. It’s a great baseball name. There are no Mookies in football. (If there are, there shouldn’t be.)

Mookie’s a good name for the kid who mows your lawn, the wiry old jazz musician who never caught a break, the mysterious water-witcher with no fixed address, and the guy who stops when your car breaks down, digs around in the back of his truck for a piece of cable, ties something up under your hood, makes your car start, and then disappears before you can say thank you.

Mostly, Mookie’s perfect for baseball.

Like Mookie Wilson of the New York Mets.

In the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, outfielder Mookie Wilson hit the ball that dribbled between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs, allowing the winning run to score, tying up the Series, and leading to the Mets’ “destiny” win in Game 7.

To one Curse of the Bambino, add one dash Mookie. Stir and serve.

Watch …

“We shoulda lost that game.”

Oh, that Mookie Wilson.

You may think I’m sharing this simply to stick it to the pesky Red Sox who beat the Orioles Friday night 7-0, and then again last night 8-0.

I’m not. If I were sticking it to the Red Sox, I would share this video instead.

(But, I’m not. So don’t watch that second video. Really, I’m serious. Don’t.)

Mookie is known for his heart and his hustle, especially on the base paths.

Here he is with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last year. Watch …

“You were the one guy everybody loved and nobody ever worried about.”

But, there’s another Mookie now: 22-year-old Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts. (Update: A Los Angeles Dodger since 2020 … but still Mookie!)

A Mookie who does amazing things in the outfield.

Like reaching into a bullpen to save a certain homerun.

Mookie excelled at baseball and basketball in high school. He’s 5’9” and can dunk.

Plus, he was named Tennessee Boys Bowler of the Year in 2010.

He bowls!

And, if all that weren’t enough, he does Yoga to warm up before games.

OK, sure, almost all of them do nowadays, but this photo of mine from last season is one of my favorites.

How can you not love a guy named Mookie who is so happy to be warming up? How can you not forgive him for being a Red Sox?

But, today there’s another Mookie.

When you live in the country, feral cats show up in your barn. Ten percent of the ferals are old tom cats, with crooked faces and matted fur. The tips of their ears are often missing and their tails take funny turns in weird directions. These toms are stealthy and you’ll usually only catch glimpses of their back ends in the mornings as they slink from your barn and disappear into the grass of the nearby pasture. They know they are squatters and they do their best to stay unseen.

But, 90 percent of the ferals that show up in your barn are pregnant females. They will have kittens in your barn and then dare you to kick them out.

You can’t. You just can’t.

And, when you finally start to catch the ferals, for fixin’ and re-homing, you wonder if one – just one – will be able to make that challenging jump from wild thing to indoor cat.

And, when one does … with purrs so loud that they rumble through the room like the freight trains that pass through the edge of town at midnight …

You name him Mookie.

Because, he seems so happy.

Just like Mookie.

Good Day. Good Advice.

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Mondays are rarely singled out as good days.

I mean, how can they be better than Saturday, right?

But, good days come in all shapes and sizes. And, this Monday was good.

Let’s check the “Good Day” box score …

Time in my day – and some jingle in my pocket – to sit down at Miso Sweet for lunch. Good!

Ramen. And, Donuts. Charlottesville. Very Good!

I know that not everyone has the time to sit down for lunch or the money to have a nutritious meal. It is not lost on me.

In the bathroom I find this note:

Good advice!

Photo: My trusty four-year old Droid. Permanent thumbprint on the lens. Not a good photo, but then, sometimes, even on good days, you are caught camera-less and only have one thumbprinty photo to show for yourself.

After lunch, I still have time to get to my Yoga studio for my own practice before my classes start. Awesome Good!

Yoga classes are full. Bountiful Goodness!

Sure, the Baltimore Orioles were swept by the Twins over the weekend. Sure, they will lose again on Monday night … and Tuesday night. Sure, they look not so good and that’s six straight losses and the chances for Orioles baseball in October are looking a little like this:

But, still. Delicious lunch. Good advice from a restaurant bathroom. Yoga.

All good.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Today Was a Good Day.”

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose.

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.” ~ “Nuke” Laloosh, Bull Durham.

National Public Radio recently suggested that, as we age, we lose our competitive drive. We play fewer sports, ergo we are less interested in winning or losing.

Some researchers speculate that this lost interest in playing sports – and in winning – comes from the “negative reactions to not winning” in our youth. In other words, blame your parents for Earl Weavering at your Little League games and for instilling in you the old adage, “It’s not whether you win or lose, Sweetie. It’s just win.”

I don’t usually argue with NPR. And, I realize that taking offense to this implies that I’m somehow older than I realized. (Young enough to still remember what I heard on NPR a week ago, but old enough to use Earl Weaver to make a point.)

Do fewer people over 40 or 50 play sports?

Well, sure. Point, NPR.

Not everybody can hang in like an Ichiro Suzuki or Bartolo Colon, the 42-year-old New York dumpling, who gets more endearing with every additional year and every extra pound.

Look Out!

But, unlike Bartolo, it gets a little harder to find time to play as we get older. Sure, we lose the physical ability. Who wants to get tackled on a football field when you’ve already got bursitis?

But, we also lose the time. We lose opportunities and, eventually, teammates.

Hey, we’ve got better things to do than volleyball anyway.

I hate volleyball. One time in junior high I was hit in the face by a volleyball, cracking my glasses and bending my headgear up toward my nose.

Yes, I wore a headgear. As though wearing braces wasn’t humiliating enough. You can stop chortling now. (You know I can’t hear you.)

In any event, is there no wonder I hate volleyball? That upon leaving high school, I promised myself there would be no time in my life where I would ever – ever – play volleyball again? Screw you corporate team-building retreats. Family picnics, or that awful weekend at the beach with friends who binge-played volleyball and Pictionary, which is even more hateful than volleyball, except that a game of Pictionary never crushed my teenage headgear.

no volleyball

There are even anti-volleyball tee-shirts! Clearly I’m not the only one with headgear stories.

But, just because volleyball sucks, doesn’t mean that I’m no longer competitive. I still like to win.

Continue reading →

Know Your Ground Rules

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

When I was about 10, I challenged my dad to a footrace around the block.

I’m not sure why I wanted to race, but my dad and I were always thinking up competitions with each other. I must have figured it was a no-lose race.

My dad said his longer legs would beat me, but I knew that I was fast. Even faster with my P.F. Flyers. I knew I could out-sprint an oldie like him.

The Favorite.

The Underdog.

We set the ground rules. From the tree in our front yard, we would run counterclockwise around the block. First one back to tag the tree wins.

Google Maps confirmed that my childhood home — and the round-the-block track — in California still exists. But, the finish line tree-of-legend is gone.

With the rules set, we took off into the street. A neighborhood block is much longer around than you think it is, especially when you’re 10 and your legs are much shorter than your dad’s. But, I picked up steam just as he was losing his, and I drew even with him somewhere around the houses that lined the block behind us. When we came to the final turn for home, my dad was pooped. I was hitting my stride.

It was at that moment that my dad veered off the street. He cut through our next-door neighbor’s yard, hopped over the waist-high fence that separated our houses, and tagged the tree. He had cut several seconds – and several feet – off of the race by short-cutting across Mr. and Mrs. Faustini’s lawn.

I was still running in the street. Soundly beaten.

I had yet to learn any of the wonderful, bleepful words that grown-ups use but children don’t. So, I probably just called him a “big cheater.” I was pretty mad.

He was jubilant. “Hey, Kid, you never said we had to follow the street.”

It would be my first time getting screwed by a loophole. There would be no rematch.

Happier Times.

I’m not sure my dad saw any great lesson in our race. He was just the kind of guy who liked to prank his kid from time to time.

But, his non-lesson left a big impression on me, and I’ve been pretty careful about making ground rules clear ever since.

Which brings me to this.

Ground rules are a baseball thing. They are the special rules governing play that are unique to a park, usually identifying a park’s lines, corners, poles, and edges as fair or foul.

At Wrigley Field in Chicago, if a ball gets stuck in the ivy it’s a double, but if the ball pops back out, it’s in play.

At Tampa’s Tropicana Field, the four catwalks are governed by different ground rules. Hit the lower ones, it’s a double; hit the higher ones, a homer. Indoor parks have all sorts of ground rules for balls that hit the roof, trusses, cables, or other stuff hanging down.

Some individual games have had their own ground rules. In 1903, during the first World Series, the games were so packed that fans overflowed into the outfield. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans agreed that if a ball was hit into the fans it would be a “ground-rule triple.”

The Americans went on to hit 18 triples over the course of the eight-game series, a World Series record that still stands.

The key thing is this – ground rules are unique to a single park or event.

Here’s what’s not unique in baseball.

Rule 5.05 (a) (6)

A fair ball, after touching the ground, bounds into the stands, or passes through, over or under a fence, or through or under a scoreboard, or through or under shrubbery, or vines on the fence, in which case the batter and the runners shall be entitled to advance two bases;

There you have it. A ball that bounces from fair territory into the stands is a double.

Nothing unique. Happens all the time. The rule is the same no matter where you are.

It is not a ground rule double. It’s just a double.

What do doubles have to do with my dad? Nothing really.

But, my dad was a stickler for getting things like this right.

San Francisco Giants broadcaster Jon Miller is a stickler, too. While most everyone else calls a fair ball bouncing out of play a “ground rule double,” Miller will call it what it actually is – an “automatic” double or a “rule book” double.

Like this:

Jon gets it right, but if you listen through, you’ll hear Mike Krukow get it wrong. And, look! That’s former Oriole’s closer Jim Johnson on the mound giving up the automatic!

(Even legendary Dodger’s broadcaster Vin Scully gets it wrong. Listen.)

Though he liked the Dodgers, my dad wasn’t much of a baseball fan, but I think he would appreciate my using this Father’s Day post as an opportunity to set the record straight about ground rule doubles.

And, he’d probably ask me to remind you: Always set clear ground rules, lest you get beaten by someone who discovers the “Faustini Loophole.”

Snap To It!

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

American Indians tell a story of how the weight of the world was built on the shell of the “Great Turtle,” a snapping turtle. The snapping turtle is honored for its strength and stamina.

Most people around here aren’t so kind. Snappers, they say, are ornery, aggressive, ugly, and good for nuthin’ but eatin’.

Photo: Ontley via Creative Commons 4.0

Snappers are all over the place in Virginia, if you know where to look. Old-timers will offer to come fish them out of your ponds for you, so they don’t chew off your duck’s feet. “If a snapping turtle bites you, it won’t let go until it thunders,” they say.

Which, of course, isn’t true. Snapping turtles are shy creatures that won’t bite unless provoked. They look weirdly prehistoric because they are prehistoric, hanging around in ponds, virtually unchanged, for the past 90 million years.

Evolution passed them by. Or, you could say, they were built tough and just right to begin with. They didn’t need your stinking evolution.

Unlike other turtles, a snapper can’t tuck its head inside its shell. But it can reach its amazingly long neck around and bite your fingers if you try to pick it up and don’t know what you’re doing. (I told you not to provoke him!)

Unlike box and painted turtles, the cuties of the turtle world, all of this has led to a bad reputation for snappers.

David Ortiz has a bad reputation because he does things like this.

Snapping turtles get a bad rap simply because they look strange.

The Oakland A’s Single A affiliate is the Beloit Snappers.

beloit snappers

The Snappers are off to a slow, turtle-like 14-22 start in the Midwest League, Western Division, this season, which isn’t very snapper-like. Only the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers have a worse record.

Come on, Snappers, snap to it!

The Wildlife Center of Virginia got this one, patient #15-0395, a few weeks ago after animal control in Culpeper, Virginia picked it up in a nearby park.

The vets think it got hit by a car, injuring its carapace (that’s poetic vet-speak for the top of a turtle’s shell). You can still see its injury.

The vets and rehabbers did their life-saving thing:

“We did a short regimen of pain killers and flushing of the wound. We also did a week of laser therapy to speed up cell regeneration in that area. The wound is still visibly present though the tissue is healed and closed. However, this guy is TOO feisty to stay with us, so he’s [ready to be set] free!”

They wrapped the “feisty” snapper up in a box and Editor/Husband brought it home so we could release it back at the park in Culpeper.

(Turtles are homebodies, hard-wired for their very limited territory. This is why it’s nice to help a turtle cross a busy road, but don’t take it any farther than that.)

Cardboard boxes are fine for toting many things, like shoes, and cereal, and old tax records, but maybe not so much for transporting feisty 15-pound, 90-million year old prehistoric turtles. Snapper broke out of the box and was sitting in the back of the Subaru by the time Editor/Husband got home.

I’m sure the snapper was simply eager to get out of the hospital and back to its pond.

We got the snapper back into its box, headed to the park where it came from, and carried the box down to the creek bank.

Home Sweet Home.

I expect turtles to be slow and methodical about things. You know, slow as a turtle.

But, the actual release took only 10 seconds or so. Seven of those seconds was carefully turning the box on its side so the turtle could slip out onto the bank of the creek.